TO: AC Transit Board of Directors
FROM: Michael A. Hursh, General Manager/Chief Executive Officer
SUBJECT: Tempo Fare Compliance Report
BRIEFING ITEM
AGENDA PLANNING REQUEST: ?
RECOMMENDED ACTION(S):
Title
Consider receiving a report on Tempo Line fare compliance done at the request of the District through the University of California at Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy Capstone Analytic Project. [Requested by Director Walsh - 9/14/2022]
Staff Contact:
Chris Andrichak, Chief Financial Officer
Body
STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE:
Goal - Financial Stability and Resiliency
Initiative - Financial Efficiency and Revenue Maximization
The District has policies on fares and a statute on fare evasion citations. The outside evaluation of the Tempo line will help guide the District in how to move forward.
BUDGETARY/FISCAL IMPACT:
The report provides four alternatives for the District to consider when it decides how to proceed with fare collection and compliance on the Tempo line. Each alternative has different implementation costs and will have different implications for fare revenue collected. The report provides some rough estimate of costs and savings for each alternative but does not attempt to predict what increased fare revenues could result in some alternatives.
BACKGROUND/RATIONALE:
AC Transit has been struggling with the issue of fare evasion and how to encourage and/or enforce fare payment on the Tempo line since the start of fare collection in November 2020. The initial three months of service were free, and since then the District has experienced fare payment compliance on Tempo at a fraction of what the rest of the service network has. Both Tempo and the regular Line 1 preceding it are the highest ridership lines in the District, and before Tempo the Line 1 was also the highest fare revenue producing line. For comparison, Line 1 brought in $5.6 million in FY 2018-19, but Tempo only brought in $611,058 in FY 2021-22. Ridership during those p...
Click here for full text